by Tracy Serpa
Gary’s head was swimming. He lowered his forehead to the table and closed his eyes, considering this new information.
“By that time, it will be too late,” he finished for her, wearily.
They sat in silence for a long while, until Gary heard Reggie shift in his chair and Josie spoke up, placing her hand on his back.
“Gary, why don’t you go lie down for a while?” she suggested. “We have a lot of work to do with your samples still, and until we figure something out, it’s probably best if you get some sleep. Try to recover a little.”
As she spoke, he felt every inch of his body begin to ache with exhaustion, the soreness of the accident and his sleepless night on the tiny bed returning full force. He realized there was likely a good deal of jet lag involved as well. Maybe she was right, and it would be best to get some rest. He stood, asking where there might be a more comfortable, private bed where he could be away from their discussions. She pointed him toward a room near the area where he had first awoken, and he had just turned to head in that direction when he heard a pounding on the metal door out front.
Instantly, his heart surged up into his throat. So Hammond was right—he had been followed, and the people who had tried to kill them the night before were only feet away from where they stood now. He looked to Josie and then to Reggie, who had exchanged a glance and then directed their eyes back at him. He waited for one of them to make a move, for Hammond to burst back into the room wielding strange weapons, for something to happen; but they just watched him, waiting, as if the sound had never come.
He made a strange choking sound and gestured toward the sound.
“It’s just the team coming back,” Josie answered, as if she knew what he was trying to ask. “Go get some rest. We’ll probably just be done with setup by the time you wake up.”
Gary frowned. They were waiting for him to leave the room; in fact, he felt certain that Josie’s suggestion that he sleep far away from the group’s working quarters had been timed to herd him out before that knock on the door had come. They were keeping something from him, and he was unsure whether or not he wanted to be let in on the secret.
“Are you going to let them in?” he finally asked, a hard edge to his voice. Josie’s face changed slightly as she realized he had figured out the game, and she seemed to slump even more. A deep sigh built in her chest, and she looked back at him with uncertainty in her eyes. He stared back at her, impassive. Finally, she turned and headed for the door, Reggie close on her heels.
Gary followed behind, and when they walked out into the front room of the warehouse, he heard Grant’s muffled complaints through the heavily reinforced door. Josie rested her palm on the door handle, and Reggie pressed a button on a nearby intercom.
“We good?” he asked simply.
Hammond’s voice responded, “It’s them, with cargo in tow.”
Josie opened the door to reveal three silhouetted figures, the middle one leaning heavily against Grant’s large frame.
“Come on, boyo,” Grant grunted as he stepped inside, half guiding, half carrying the man who staggered next to him. Tab followed to his right, providing what physical support she could. Instantly, the team was moving with purpose; Josie’s exhaustion dissolved as she murmured back and forth with Tab, and Reggie swung in behind to take the smaller woman’s place, supporting their struggling passenger.
They passed Gary quickly, as if he wasn’t standing there watching them regroup. Dazed by yet another sudden shift in the atmosphere, he followed them back into the kitchen area and through the second door into a large portion of the warehouse that had been converted into a makeshift laboratory. Several flat-screen televisions linked to computer terminals displayed numbers, figures, and graphs that appeared to be updating themselves every few seconds. Hammond sat in the center of the smaller area, watching one of the screens carefully, his elbows on the desk in front of him.
To the left, three gurneys had been set up with the corresponding medical equipment that Gary expected to see at a hospital: monitors, IV lines, and a slew of other machines and tubes that ran to boxes about which he could only guess. For a moment, he couldn’t understand why each of the bed setups sat in its own, relatively large plastic container. And then he realized: the team had set up quarantined rooms.
His eyes flashed back to the man that Grant now carried alone, hobbling toward the nearest plastic encasement, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. Had they found someone who had been involved with the test group and brought him here? What were they hoping to find? If they had been able to access a sample this easily, then why the hell was he here, when he should be home with his children?
The anger flared up, exploding out of him when he saw Hammond watching him intently.
“What the hell is going on?” he roared at the older man, satisfied when he saw that Hammond’s eyes widened just slightly at his sudden outburst.
Several of the others had turned, surprised by his shout, but Grant had just made it to the first quarantine room and was settling his “cargo” into the gurney, strapping him down at the ankles, wrists, and waist. The bed had been positioned to allow its occupant a view of the room, and Gary could see that the man was afraid, even through the bleary haze in his eyes. He was younger than Gary, probably mid-thirties, with a round face and soft body. His hair was thinning, a light mousy brown that did nothing to enhance his appearance. His fleshy lips quivered as he looked around the room, bewildered and confused; he was the only one who did not acknowledge Gary’s sudden outburst.
Josie cleared her throat and approached Gary as the rest of the room went back to work.
“Gary, go rest. You don’t need to be here for this,” she said. Her attempt to sound soothing only grated on his raw nerves.
“For what?” he growled.
She studied him for a moment, as she had before answering the door; he realized she was trying to give him an out, a way to stay away from something negative, and he was throwing it back in her face without even considering the offer. But she should know that he was involved now; he had brought her samples of his son’s DNA, and unknowingly left his family behind in a perilous situation. He would not lie down in a quiet room and ignore what was going on around him in an attempt to keep his hands clean.
She must have seen the decision in his eyes, because she stepped closer to him and put a cool hand on his arm.
“We have to get some answers, and we have to get them fast. We don’t have time to pull apart the sample, to start from zero. We thought we’d have more time when you got here, that if something happened with the test subjects that it would be better contained or it would be slower moving. But the blackout on Oahu . . . we have to take that as a sign that things are out of control already. And if that’s the case, we may already be too far behind to catch up.”
“Who—is—that?” he questioned, emphasizing each syllable carefully.
He saw Josie’s patience snap, and her eyes narrowed slightly. As she spoke, her lip curled up at the edges into a small sneer.
“That is Nathan Corst, one of the junior researchers in charge of Serophim development at Argo. He worked with me, for me, when I was at the company.”
“And why do we have him here?” Gary pushed.
Josie made a sound that was somewhere between frustration and disgust, and he thought she might turn and stomp away. Instead, she crossed her arms and glowered at the floor.
“Like I said, we might be too far behind anyway. And while you were gone, we got to talking; the sample you brought us gives us an idea of what we’re dealing with, but we have no way to figure out how it works in the human body, how it’s adapting, changing in real time in reaction to real stimuli. So even if we stumble upon some kind of cure in the next day or two, it might not be the right cure for the right problem. We’ll still be behind. Do you understand?”
He shook his head, and Josie swallowed before continuing.
“Look, Gary, I fought them for a diff
erent solution. But then I realized, we’re just wasting time. And someone like Nathan . . . he might have some answers for us. And aside from that . . .”
He waited for a minute for her to continue, saying, “Go ahead,” when she didn’t.
“Aside from that, we need a subject.”
His mind reeled as everything she had said slammed together in his brain to create a horrifying picture. Unwilling to believe the implication, he shoved the pieces back apart.
“So, you’re planning on getting information from him? How?” he demanded.
Her shoulders tensed up, and he was suddenly reminded of Sarah, defensive about her messy room or a low test grade.
“We’re going to ask him what he knows,” she said curtly.
“And if he doesn’t tell you?”
“We’ll still get valuable information from him.”
“Meaning you’re going to give him Serophim and watch what happens?” Gary was surprised at the tone of disgust that rang clearly in his voice once he could no longer pretend that his inference was incorrect.
Josie looked up and met his gaze directly, the calm, cool mask returning as she shook her head.
“Too slow. We’re behind, remember? And we have advanced samples available.”
Gary gaped at her, his brain freezing as he realized that they intended to use the samples he had brought to infect the man in the quarantine in the hopes of figuring out some kind of cure. Or maybe just to extract what information they could from him before he became like the animals in Josie’s video.
“You can’t.” His voice was just a whisper.
Her sudden, vicious answer made him wince.
“You want to save your kids? This is the way we do it. There’s no time for anything else.”
And with that, she turned and stalked back to stand next to Reggie, who leaned against a desk housing a computer, a microscope, and innocuous-looking lab equipment. Gary’s stomach seized when he realized a small tin plate lay near them, with a vial and syringe lying atop a piece of paper towel. It was then that he saw Hammond was still watching him. Something in the older man’s face told Gary that he was waiting, expecting, maybe even daring him to protest, to do something stupid, so that he could lock him in a back room or kick him out on the street with no allies, no connections, and no information. Horrified, he realized he would rather wait in this room and watch Nathan become an animal than be left in the dark, hoping for some kind of miracle for his family.
He sank to the floor with his back against the wall and watched as Grant stepped out of the quarantine and zipped the plastic up behind him, moving to stand with the other four members of the group.
“What’s going on?” Nathan mumbled, his voice gravelly, as if he had just been awakened from a midday nap.
“Nathan, do you remember me?” Josie said, loud enough for her voice to pierce the plastic walls of his prison.
Nathan squinted, surveying her face. The moment that her features registered in his memory, his mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened in genuine fear.
“Josie?” he squeaked.
She nodded and said, “Hi, Nathan. I’m sorry about all of this.”
He looked around the room again, still bewildered.
“Nathan, what’s going on with Serophim?”
At the mention of the drug, everything about the young man changed. The haze slowly dropped away, and he focused on a distant point of reference, somewhere outside of the cold, imposing warehouse. His lips lifted into a small, satisfied smile, and he responded quietly, “We’re going to change the world.”
Josie walked forward toward the quarantine.
“Nathan, listen to me. I know what you believe. I know what we all believed. But you know what happened at the animal trials . . .”
“No, no!” he cried, trying to lift his hand to stop her from speaking. His shackle clanged against the side of the gurney. “We fixed that!”
For a brief moment, Gary’s heart lifted, and he found himself leaning forward to listen.
“We rewrote the expiration programming. It’s impossible to overwrite; I don’t even think Farouk could do it!” He smiled a desperate, thick-lipped smile at Josie, as if this bit of information were his ticket home.
But Josie was shaking her head.
“It failed. Again.”
“No. No, it didn’t.” Nathan closed his eyes and shook his head like a stubborn child.
“Nathan, we have samples from a patient that show nanites well past the thirty-day expiration point. Some of them are from the original dose. They are not adhering to the programming,” she insisted, still walking forward slowly.
The young man licked his lips, the clarity in his eyes becoming brighter, almost feverish. The room was silent for several long moments.
“What do you want?” he said finally.
“Does Argo have a cure?” she asked simply.
He stared at her hard, his expression unreadable. And then, his lips turned up into the same, desperate smile.
“A cure? A cure for a cure?” he responded in a tone of forced bewilderment. “Don’t you understand? We may be just months away from cancer trials—we could cure cancer! And autoimmune diseases, every one, solved with this technology. You can’t seriously think that we’d move to human trials without addressing the glitches.”
Behind Josie, Hammond rose to his feet and picked up the syringe. Gary could see that whatever was in it was a pale reddish brown, the color of watered-down syrup. The older man stalked forward, passing Josie, and began unzipping the quarantine room. Nathan began to squirm on the bed.
“What’s that?” he squeaked, his eyes glued to the syringe.
“Is there a cure?” Josie repeated, her voice like granite. Bile burned Gary’s esophagus, and yet he could not find the will to try to stop them, partly because he knew they were set in their course and partly because he knew that if he wanted his son saved, this might be their only avenue to that end. So he reminded himself that this man had ignored the same evidence that had caused Josie to lose her job, her reputation, and to contact him. He reminded himself that he was on the right side of things.
Finally, a look of sincerity washed over Nathan’s expression. He shook his head emphatically.
“No, no, we don’t have anything like a ‘cure.’” He said the word with a real measure of disgust. “We tested the new programming; there was no reason to have anything . . . I mean, what would that even look like?” He was speaking fast now, trying to come up with the right answer as Hammond approached his bedside.
Josie shrugged her shoulders. “We don’t know what that would look like,” she said. “But we have to find out. Because you know as well as I do that the entire island is dark because of this thing.”
Hammond waited at Nathan’s right shoulder, and the young man looked back and forth from Josie to the needle, not sure which was more dangerous.
“What’s in that?” he whimpered.
“Serophim, day ninety-five. Taken from a blood sample from one of the human test subjects.”
When he saw Nathan’s eyes widen in terror, Gary’s heart hardened to the man’s plight completely. He knew; he knew what that needle meant, even if he was trying to act like he didn’t. The tears welling in his eyes made it clear.
“No, Josie . . . Josie, there’s no cure. I would tell you; I would. There’s nothing to counteract the drug, nothing to stop the nanites. Why would we need something like that? They’re supposed to expire.” He was nearly screaming now. “Believe me, they’re supposed to expire!”
When Hammond stuck the needle into Nathan’s shoulder and pressed down on the plunger, the screams began in earnest.
Twenty-One
Jones, Paul, and Kai had waited with guns trained on the door for the onslaught, but no other figures appeared in the dark. When Jones checked his watch, they found that over twenty minutes had passed in stillness and silence.
“Are they gone?” Paul finally asked.
; “They could be. Maybe they’re afraid of the guns,” Jones offered. “That guy said they stopped coming in after some of them got shot.”
“I didn’t buy that,” Kai answered. “The crazy guy out front didn’t seem to care when I killed his friend. He just came on like nothing had happened.”
“Maybe guns are different,” Jones countered. “I mean, everyone knows that the guy with the gun wins the fight.” He glanced over his shoulder at Kai, still locked inside the cell. “Maybe the crazy outside thought he could take you and your bat.”
Kai smiled begrudgingly at his friend, and for the first time in the space of an hour, he allowed himself to take a deep breath and relax. The muscles in his shoulders and arms complained as he lowered the rifle that Paul had passed him through the bars of his cell, and he leaned against the nearest wall, rubbing his neck.
“Come on, Jones,” he heard Paul say. “Let’s push some of this stuff against the door. At least make it a little more difficult to get in.”
Kai almost protested, not wanting his brother to expose himself further, but he knew some impediment at the door could at least give them a few minutes to think and discuss their options, which they desperately needed. So he pulled himself upright again and trained his weapon on the door, covering the other two as they dragged a sofa, potted plants, boxes, and finally a desk chair over to the gaping hole and built a stop.
When they were done, they shuffled back across the room, breathing heavily, and sat down on the floor across from Kai’s cell. Jones leaned his head against the cinder block wall, his mouth dropping open gently as he dozed. Nearer to the cell, Paul rubbed his face and eyes; his exhaustion was evident.